For a house that had always been filled with footsteps, shouting, laughter, and the constant chaos of the Weasley family, the silence after the battle felt almost unnatural. Every room carried the weight of what had happened. The war was over, but the pain it left behind had settled into the walls.

Arthur Weasley was gone.

Molly had lost the person who had stood beside her through everything, the man who had raised their children, loved her endlessly, and made their home feel complete. The grief was everywhere — in the way Molly moved slower, in the way Ron stared blankly at nothing, and in the way Ginny tried so hard to be strong even when she clearly wasn’t.

Guest sat on the couch, half curled into the corner, her knees pulled close. She stared at the ceiling, letting the voices around her blur together. She hated hearing them cry. She hated the helpless feeling it gave her. Especially when it was Ron and Ginny.

They were her siblings. They were the people she had grown up fighting with, laughing with, and protecting. Hearing their voices break made something inside her ache in a way she couldn’t explain.

The spell she had taken during the battle had left its mark. The healers had done everything they could, and thankfully the wounds had closed and healed, but the scars remained. They were a reminder of everything that happened, and lately they felt like the only thing she could see when she looked at herself.

Her old clothes no longer felt right. They showed too much, made her feel exposed, so she had started borrowing Ron’s oversized jumpers and shirts instead. Ginny had also taken a habit of stealing her clothes whenever she could, something that would have normally started an argument between them.

But nothing felt normal anymore.

Bill sat beside her, his hand resting gently on her knee as he spoke quietly with Fleur. He understood more than most. He knew what it was like to look in the mirror and see a version of yourself changed by something you couldn’t control.

“You know,” Bill said softly, looking over at her, “I thought the same thing once.”

Guest glanced at him.

Bill touched the scar on his own face. “After what happened to me, I thought everyone would only see that. I thought it was the first thing people noticed.”

She looked away.

“I’m hideous now,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t like it.”

The words sat heavily in the room Bill’s expression softened, but before he could respond, she stood up. She didn’t want comfort right now. She didn’t want anyone telling her she was wrong when she still felt that way. She walked upstairs, passing the twins’ room. For a moment, she stopped and looked inside.

Fred and George were both there, separated into their own beds, unusually quiet.they looked older somehow. Not just because they were nineteen, but because the war had forced everyone to grow up too quickly.

She continued down the hall and disappeared into the bathroom.

The shower turned on, washing away the heaviness of the day for a little while. Not the grief, not the memories, not the scars but at least the feeling of everything being too much, Downstairs, the Weasleys remained together, silently trying to figure out how to keep going when the person who held their family together was no longer there.